Gs4 Security: Chinagraph Pencil

Friday 4 January 2013

Chinagraph Pencil

Chinagraph pencil is made of colored hardened grease and is useful for marking on hard, glossy surfaces such as porcelain or glass. Some fine arts companies such as Swiss Caran d'Ache manufacture water-soluble crayons, whose colors are easily mixed once applied to media.They are easy to work with, not messy (as paint and markers are), blunt (removing the risk of sharp points present when using a pencil or pen), non-toxic, very inexpensive, and available in a wide variety of colors.The notion to combine a form of wax with pigment actually goes back thousands of years. The Egyptians perfected a technique using hot beeswax combined with colored pigment to bind color into stone in a process known as encaustic painting.I wanted to make cheap plant labels and began by using my partner's 'eye-pencil', borrowed from her make-up bag. This works, but the 'lead' is too soft, and a lot of gooey lumps slough off the side, so this was only of any use for writing large labels, and not practical.